A populating line is configured for populating a circuit board with a number of components. In this case, a differentiation may be made between variant manufacturing and fixed equipment manufacturing.
In variant manufacturing, for a short planning horizon (approximately 1-5 days), the circuit boards to be manufactured are divided into setup families (“clusters”). A setup family is, in this case, a set of circuit boards producible with a predetermined number of components on the populating line. The set of the component types required for this purpose is called the equipment and may be accommodated in a set of shuttle tables. A shuttle table may be equipped with the matching components in the preliminary setup for production and stripped again thereafter.
In fixed equipment manufacturing, the equipment for the assemblies to be manufactured is permanently equipped for longer periods (approximately 6-12 months) on shuttle tables. In the case of multiple items of fixed equipment per populating line, the shuttle tables are exchanged accordingly during the setup family change. The equipping and stripping of shuttle tables is then no longer necessary in daily production.
Manufacturing is frequently also operated in mixed form, wherein a part of the circuit boards is produced in fixed equipment manufacturing and another part is produced in variant manufacturing on the same populating line. Because of the lower expenditure for planning, stock keeping, preliminary setup, and refitting, an effort may be made to increase the proportion of fixed equipment manufacturing and reduce the proportion of variant equipment manufacturing.